The distributed network known as the Internet is a global array of cooperatively interconnected computer networks. It includes the World Wide Web, which is a collection of websites defined by web servers—computers that store and retrieve computer files representing web pages that are requested by and displayed to users of the Internet. Web pages combine text, graphic images, animation, audio and other multimedia forms for presentation to viewers. In the Web environment, client machines communicate with Web servers using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which uses a standard page description language known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML provides basic document formatting and allows the developer to specify “links” to other servers and files.
It is known to provide web page authoring tools, such as “FRONT PAGE” and “FRONTPAGE EXPRESS” developed by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash., which provide web page authors an ability to quickly and efficiently create compelling web pages. Much of the power of these tools is derived from the use of style templates, which contain predefined HTML formatting commands for predetermined styles. Because of the need to store large libraries of templates and other large files, such as background bitmaps, state-of-the-art web-authoring tools require computer platforms with relatively large amounts of system resources, i.e., memory. With templates, a web page author avoids the tedious task of manually entering hundreds of HTML formatting commands.
When an HTML page is created, programs such as “FRONTPAGE” and “FRONTPAGE EXPRESS” use a stream-based approach that generates a page layout arranged as a stream of commands and data. A particular style command is selected. Data, such as text, is then entered. The selected style is then closed. Such an approach is extremely flexible by providing many layout styles, but, as mentioned, requires that a client device on which the HTML page is being created to have a significant amount of processing power and memory.
There is a recent growing trend towards the use of portable hand-held computing devices that offer portability, but which provide somewhat limited computing features. Known hand-held devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), provide for the storage and retrieval of addresses and other information, sending and receiving of e-mail via communications link and other functionality defined by resident software applications. PDAs offer the capability of remote connectivity to a desktop computer or to the Internet using a communications link, enabling users to upload and download information, and to synchronize information stored in the PDA with information on a host computer, from virtually any geographic location. Hand-held devices also include rather specialized platforms, such as digital cameras, which provide users with the capability of instantly recording electronic images on a removable storage device, such as a floppy diskette, for later viewing on a desktop computer. From the desktop computer, users may send the image files to their friends via e-mail, post them to an existing website on the World Wide Web, or incorporate them into their own website. As the user interfaces and features of digital cameras become more sophisticated, they may tend to incorporate much of the functionality of PDAs.
One consequence of the compact designs and low weights consumers desire in hand-held electronic devices is that such devices are limited in the amount of system resources, namely memory and screen size, that they provide. Although the portability of hand-held devices make them attractive as web-authoring platforms, they have not heretofore been considered as feasible platforms for web creation, primarily because of their limited system resources. It would therefore be desirable to provide a web-authoring system and method that are suitable for implementation on a hand-held device, such as a PDA or a digital camera. Such a system and method would permit users of digital cameras, for example, to create compelling web pages that incorporate digital images they have recorded “on-the-spot” and provide their own textual information for presentation to others on the World Wide Web. It would also be desirable to provide a way to layout an HTML page that does not require the client device on which the HTML page is being created to have a significant amount of processing power and/or memory.